The obedient notary: when Human Resources becomes the executioner within

In sound management theory, the Human Resources department has a clear and almost sacred mission: to preserve, protect and develop the greatest wealth an organisation has, the minds and the effort of its people. The department was born to be the professional conscience of the company, to make sure work is done fairly, that fatigue does not cross human limits and that the relationship between employer and employee never degenerates into exploitation.

But as soon as you cross the threshold of many Albanian businesses today, you meet one of the most grotesque distortions of this profession.

That office does not exist to protect people. It does not even exist to protect the long-term interest of the company itself. It works simply as a private notary's office for the owner's whims, combined with a small court of inquisition for anyone who dares to claim their rights.

Let me say this with all the clarity the truth demands. When Human Resources abandons the role of advocate of the standard and takes on the role of notary of the arbitrary, it stops being a management function. It becomes the chief accomplice in destroying dignity at work.

Let us look at this theatre in its two everyday acts.

The first act is blind notarisation. The owner wakes up irritable one morning, walks into the warehouse or the shop, and for a completely trivial reason decides to fire someone, cut their pay or hand them an illegal fine. In a normal company, the head of Human Resources stands up, puts the law and the procedure on the table and says: This cannot be done. It breaks the rules, violates the labour code and destroys the team's morale.

And here, what happens?

The personnel office asks no questions. They do not dare to open their mouths. Instead, they immediately open the files, search eagerly for some vague clause, weave a warning in cold legal language and put a fresh stamp on the injustice. They give bureaucratic hygiene to a deeply wrong decision. They become the notary who cleans away the traces of the boss's anger, turning an emotional act into an official document.

And then comes the second act, the one of the false judge.

Picture an ordinary employee who is being crushed by overlong hours, insulted by an incompetent supervisor or denied the money he is owed. Used to the theories from training sessions, he thinks the door of Human Resources is the place to knock for help. He goes there believing he is entering a neutral room, where reason is heard.

But as soon as he sits in that chair, he realises he is not talking to an adviser; he is talking to the company's prosecutor.

Instead of understanding, he meets interrogation: Why are you the only one complaining? Why don't you understand the firm's position? Do you know how much the owner does for all of us? Instead of investigating the problem raised, they investigate the employee's loyalty. Within ten minutes, the blame has moved to the victim. And as soon as the employee leaves that office, the same office picks up the phone to report to the owner who it was that dared to raise his head.

This is a tragic paradox.

Look at how carefully machines are treated in a business. When a truck or a forklift breaks down in the warehouse, the best technician is called, original parts are bought, every detail of maintenance is worked out so the equipment is not damaged. But for the human being, the only element that creates value and cannot be replaced with metal, there is no maintenance plan. The employee is seen as fuel that is burned quickly and thrown away. And the office that bears his name is precisely the one that orchestrates his fastest burn-out.

The professionals who sit in those chairs should ask themselves one simple moral question: What are you really protecting?

Loyalty to a business is not shown by notarising its mistakes. Saying “yes” to every whim of the owner is not professionalism; it is submission on a monthly salary. By becoming a shield for arrogance and silencing the voice of what is right, Human Resources is helping to create ghost companies, which look complete in the papers of the archive, but are entirely empty of spirit, commitment and future.

A great company is not built with stamps that justify insult. It is built with internal institutions that have the courage to protect people even when it spoils the owner's mood.

And until the personnel offices in Albania decide to take off the judge's robe and put down the blind notary's stamp to become allies of the truth, employees will keep doing the only thing left to them: they will walk through that door for good, leaving behind a company with plenty of orderly files in its archive, but not a single person who still wants to work there.